Loudon Wainwright III
- Loudon Wainwright III [Atlantic, 1970] B-
- Album II [Atlantic, 1971] B+
- Album III [Columbia, 1972] A-
- Attempted Mustache [Columbia, 1973] A-
- Unrequited [Columbia, 1975] A-
- T Shirt [Arista, 1976] B+
- Final Exam [Arista, 1978] B+
- A Live One [Rounder, 1980] B+
- Fame and Wealth [Rounder, 1983] B
- I'm Alright [Rounder, 1985] B+
- More Love Songs [Rounder, 1987] B+
- Therapy [Silvertone, 1989] B+
- History [Charisma, 1992] *
- Career Moves [Virgin, 1993] A
- Grown Man [Virgin, 1996] A-
- Little Ship [Charisma, 1998] ***
- Social Studies [Hannibal, 1999] *
- Last Man on Earth [Red House, 2001] ***
- So Damn Happy [Sanctuary, 2003] B+
- Here Come the Choppers! [Sovereign Artists, 2005] A-
- Strange Weirdos [Concord, 2007] B+
- Recovery [Yep Roc, 2008] *
- High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project [161, 2009] A
Consumer Guide Reviews:
Loudon Wainwright III [Atlantic, 1970]Wainwright writes with more precision and imagination than any other singer-songwriter of the current boom, and his melodies stick with you. He sings and plays with such authority that even though this record features only voice and acoustic guitar it's powerful musically. But. The failures of the talented are always painful, and this is very strained. He's smart enough to integrate syntactical contortions into his style, and to match them vocally, but they still make you wince sometimes. And there's no emotional maturity to go with the verbal control, no sense of kindness or ease. I enjoy this record quite a bit, but I admire it more, and sometimes I don't like it at all. B-
Album II [Atlantic, 1971]
In which Wainwright untwists the dense associations--usually too literal and/or analytic to qualify as metaphor--that made his first album so hard to take, though for those who'd like to sample the mode "Be Careful, There's a Baby in the House" is as good as it gets. He may make you laugh, but he's not trying to be funny--this is bitter stuff whether he's trying to persuade a groupie to save his life or to explain that an old friendship has gone from backslap to handshake. B+
Album III [Columbia, 1972]
In which the whiz kid relaxes with a pleasant folk-rock band and admits that the chief use of epigrammatic wit is humor, thereby consenting to be funny right out. He also allows himself a few moments of genuine lyricism, sees fit to steal a song from Leiber & Stoller, and also appropriates a melody from "Sweet Little Sixteen." His reward? "Dead Skunk," a song redolent of the pop success he seeks. The misanthrope grows older. Very encouraging. A-
Attempted Mustache [Columbia, 1973]
First he was a failed poet. Now he's a successful comedian. Maybe someday soon he'll put it all together and become a successful poet, but this will do--the fact that "Dilated to Meet You" and "Lullaby" and for that matter "The Swimming Song" are funny doesn't mean they don't add to the great store of human wisdom. And as I recall, Chuck Berry made do with something similar for quite a while. A-
Unrequited [Columbia, 1975]
Since most people can't absorb the head-on impact of Wainwright's conjugal details--how do you confront an accusation like "You told me that I came too soon but it was you who came too late"?--the second side of this album, recorded live, tends to sound a little yockier than it should. On side one, however, the mockery has just the right edge of self-flagellation and is balanced off by a gentleness without which he might seem a little spoiled. In other words, the balance of pleasure and pain he's been seeking for five years. A-
T Shirt [Arista, 1976]
Loudon seems to be approaching sanity as he approaches thirty, and while that bodes well for his career it won't help his (you'll pardon the expression) his art much. He needs one song as astonishing as "Rufus Is a Tit Man" every time out. B+
Final Exam [Arista, 1978]
The renewed bite here seems more a sign that producer John Lissauer has a knack for the exquisite programmatic effect--check out the Roches' demure buffoonery on "Golfin' Blues" or the way the band calls Loudon "Mr. Guilty"--than that Wainwright is once again willing to apply his scalpel to himself. It was always brave, painful jokes like "Motel Blues" and "Kick in the Head" that gave the rest of his funny stuff its strength, and their absence from his two most recent albums may be why even his best new songs sound like one-liners rather than comic classics. Lotsa great one-liners, though. B+
A Live One [Rounder, 1980]
The cheap seats are the only seats at a Wainwright show, and too often he plays to them, but here the screwy faces and strangled diction and spastic phrasing and easy jokes are kept in check. It's not as if his albums are so ornately orchestrated that the man-and-his-guitar format is a breath of fresh air. But he's a singer-songwriter who deserves a best-of, and this will do till he gets it. B+
Fame and Wealth [Rounder, 1983]
Loudon's most confident album since he split with CBS in 1975 is also his least ambitious, done folkie-style with two penetrating embellishments from Richard Thompson and two band cuts. For a while he walks his old tightrope, wild and nasty enough to make his chronic egoism seem of general interest. But the jokes and feelings are getting thinner, and soon you'll find yourself wishing he'd grow up, shut up, or both. B
I'm Alright [Rounder, 1985]
Last time he was complacent in defeat, his irony all sarcasm and his permanent postadolescence an annoying bore. This time he's facing up--not to anything existential or absurd, that stuff comes too easy, but to what it might mean to make an alright career (and life) out of "unhappy love." The result is discernibly superior to the perfectly enjoyable one-liner miscellanies of the late '70s and not quite there even so. Just rooting for the Rangers and having his doubts about bell-bottom pants once made him a (very minor) prophet; now they make him normal. My suggestion: a concept album about having kids. B+
More Love Songs [Rounder, 1987]
With regret and trepidation, I'd venture that divorce has been good for his songwriting--after almost a decade of hit-and-miss, this is his second straight to lay down an attitude. The two tracks that tackle the split head-on aren't clever enough for Nashville, which with this clever bastard is a plus. On the other hand, the wit of "Man's World" is subsumed by its antifeminist rancor, so that after "Unhappy Anniversary" side two rides on attitude alone. B+
Therapy [Silvertone, 1989]
He makes fun of it, and why not, but it's been good for him--the only time he revels in what a mean bastard he is you'd think he was describing somebody else. Not only has shrinkage sharpened his instinct for love's twists, it's gotten him musing about his great subject, parenthood. In "Thanksgiving" he rankles and dreams, in "Me and All the Other Mothers" he braves the playground, and in "My Father's Car" he's insecure about his dad, his mom, his kids, an ex-wife, and the state inside of 2:21. B+
History [Charisma, 1992]
at its best, why he needs the men's movement; at its worst, why you don't ("Talking New Bob Dylan," "Hitting You") *
Career Moves [Virgin, 1993]
Wainwright has aged no better than most likable bad boys, maybe worse. His promising-to-excellent young songs turned gamy in the '80s--how many rueful immaturity jokes can one over-30 sing?--and though some claim he grew up with History, its Iron John sensitivity was a cover for the same old self-involvement. But by sampling the highs of his over-30 output while eliding its numerous flubs, this constitutes a summing up. Framed by two unembittered accounts of how he makes his living and dotted with illustrative patter, it has its heart-tuggers ("Your Mother and I," written to explain the inevitable breakup to his and Suzzy Roche's daughter), but mostly it presents him as what he is--a talented wag who came in his cummerbund, dropped clown acid, and never became a star. It should cheer any over-30 bad boy who can forget that his spotty sex life and pathetic adventures in substance abuse will never be as entertaining as this born entertainer's. It may also convince the bad boy's squeeze that things could be worse. A
Grown Man [Virgin, 1996]
In a music where scions of the upper-middle class are supposed to camouflage their cultural impoverishment, one of the many irritating things about L-III is that he's never bothered. Another is his great subject, which boils down to divorce whether the metaphor is his kids or his mom or his waitress. Here, however, the metaphor surpasses itself on at least four songs--about a jerk doing the women's-lib hustle after the porch door has closed, a philandering father and his faithless son, who then becomes a father who meets his daughter on her first birthday, and an older daughter who gets the last word because her father scripts it for her. "That Hospital," which is about life and death, is where his belated maturity comes from. Don't bet it lasts. A-
Little Ship [Charisma, 1998]
jape, jape against the dying of the light ("Four Mirrors," "So Damn Happy") ***
Social Studies [Hannibal, 1999]
commentary not protest, and usually worse for it ("Tonya's Twirls," "Pretty Good Day") *
Last Man on Earth [Red House, 2001]
his mother died and he's gonna ("White Winos," "Bed") ***
So Damn Happy [Sanctuary, 2003]
His 1993 Career Moves did the live folkie best-of as right as it's ever been done. A decade on he's more half-assed--men's-lib lite from History, redundant third "Westchester County," nothing off 2001's Last Man on Earth because his label changed (again). But with a couple of exceptions the songs were strong to start and improve in context, and there are five (out of 17) new ones--every one a winner, three played for laughs if you count "Something for Nothing," which is about file-sharing. Know what? The old fart's against it, although he's too sarcastic to come out and say so straight. Know what else? He may convince you. This is a man who's been making mincemeat out of hippie muscleheads since Timothy Leary was a visionary. B+
Here Come the Choppers! [Sovereign Artists, 2005]
For a decade Wainwright has been keeping it real with songs about family trauma and songs about what a shit he is--themes sometimes addressed simultaneously, as in "Year," where he first meets his latest daughter on her first birthday. Once his political songs fell flat because he wasn't scared or angry enough. Now when he's a shit you wonder why you should care--which is kind of hip-hop, don't you think?--but Bush has him so scared and angry he makes up for it, with a dedicated posse of El Lay studio vets getting in their licks. "No Sure Way" mourns the WTC, "God's Country" renounces Nashville, and "Choppers" imagines a bombed Los Angeles devastated as logically and surreally as a bombed Baghdad. And "Choppers" is no more disturbing than "My Biggest Fan," which could inspire any singer-songwriter to do an emotional cost-benefit analysis on the touring life--and leave a 400-pound aficionado feeling flattered anyway. A-
Strange Weirdos [Concord, 2007]
The "soundtrack" to the gloriously funny Knocked Up slips in two Joe Henry instrumentals and a remake of Wainwright's 1973 "Lullaby" that's more passionate than the love song he goes out on, which is called "Passion Play." But parenthood has always been one of his great themes, L.A. life is turning into another, and as for love, give him this: He has long shown a knack for pretending that he's getting the idea. B+
Recovery [Yep Roc, 2008]
62-year-old applies a lifetime of singing lessons and emotional travail to the coruscations of his youth ("Muse Blues," "Old Friend"). *
High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project [161, 2009]
Young folkies are attracted to their chosen past because it seems so raw. But though young folkie Wainwright twigged to this totemic mountaineer via the line "The beefsteak it was rare and the butter had red hair," now he's old enough to cook him. Poole didn't write that line or anything else he sang--he'd perform Paul Dresser's musty "The Letter That Never Came" as soon as W.C. Handy's hightailing "Ramblin' Blues" if he thought it was good for a drink. And in Wainwright's plentifully illustrated and annotated two-CD tribute, where nine of the 29 selections are new songs by Wainwright and/or producer Dick Connette, Poole stands as a touchstone of a bygone era. Wainwright is such a card that you don't think of him as a singer, but he puts more throat and thorax into the sentimental ballads than Poole had in him, and his barn burners are louder and faster without approaching Poole's rooted assurance or reckless abandon. These conscious misprisions are fine by me. In fact, I'm more likely to play the canny reconstruction than the certified original. I'm older than Poole ever was. A